The present invention relates generally to the field of gloves for use in sports, and in particular, to padded athletic, work and driving gloves.
A large number of sports participants use sports gloves or other protective hand covering. Some participants use gloves to attempt to enhance their performance in their chosen sport. Others chose to wear gloves as a protective measure for their hands and/or wrists. As a result, a large number of gloves have been designed, manufactured and sold to sports participants, some of which claim to address one or more of the needs of the sports participant. In general, these gloves may be placed into one or more of three different categories.
The first such category includes gloves designed to provide protective padding to the palm and/or fingers of the sports participant. For example, individuals participating in weight lifting for either sport or exercise often wear padded, fingerless gloves to provide protection to the palms of the hands. Individuals who ride bicycles for sport or exercise also commonly use such padded gloves. In addition, several gloves have been designed which include padding in the palm and/or the fingers for use with baseball or softball mitts. In this situation, wearers of the padded glove would first put on the glove and then insert their hand into the baseball or softball mitt, thereby providing extra padding for use while playing in the field.
The second general category of sports gloves is comprised of gloves designed to assist the wearer in catching a ball or other object. For example, wide receivers in football and soccer goalies often wear gloves designed to increase the likelihood that a thrown or kicked ball will be caught by the wearer of the glove. In general, these gloves are fairly tight fitting and include a rougher palm and/or finger surface to increase the wearer's grip.
The third category of athletic gloves includes gloves designed to enhance the grip of the wearer on an object already held within the user's hands. For example, baseball players typically wear batting gloves during both practice and games while facing live pitching. Similar types of gloves also are used by racquetball players. Gloves in this category are designed to be fairly tight fitting and very flexible with hand movements in order to enhance the wearer's grip on the racquet, bat or club, despite the presence of perspiration or moisture on the wearer's hands. While containing gripenhancing qualities, these gloves typically provide little, if any, protective padding to the hands and fingers.
Golf gloves fall within this third category of grip enhancing gloves. The game of golf, however, presents unique problems when designing a glove for use with that sport. Golf gloves are typically made to be rather tight fitting on the user's hand and also extremely flexible to allow a full range of hand motion. As a result, golf gloves are typically made of very thin, supple leather designed to allow a user to have an increased grip on the golf club, without sacrificing the "feel" a golfer has for the club. Unlike baseball, in which the typical batter does not interlock the hand or fingers on the handle of the bat, the golfer, depending on the grip used, typically interlocks or overlaps the two hands on the golf club handle. Such a grip further enhances the need that the golf glove be tight fitting, thin, and supple to allow this interlocking grip while still permitting the user to feel the golf club during play. The situation is further exacerbated by the fact that the golf club handle is much smaller in diameter than a typical baseball bat or racquetball racquet handle, resulting in the need for a glove that will not allow the club to rotate in the golfer's hands when striking the golf ball or ground.
As a result of the above unique requirements, golf gloves have typically comprised thin, tight fitting gloves made of supple leather. Such gloves have been fairly successful in providing wearers with grip enhancing qualities and, to some extent, protection from blisters or other abrasions to the surface of the hand and fingers. While beneficial to the typical once a week or once a summer golfer, such gloves provide minimal, if any, protection to the wearer from vibrations or shocks caused by the club head striking the ball or ground.
Golfing enthusiasts may find themselves on the golf course or at a driving range several times in a given week. Particularly for those golfers who tend to hit a large number of balls at the driving range, the successive and repeated nature of the shock transmitted into the hands, wrists and arms of the golfer may result in cumulative trauma disorders to the hands, wrists, and arms. The golfer who hits literally hundreds to thousands of golf balls per day or per week may develop physical problems from the vibrations generated when the club head strikes the ball or ground. Such contact by the club head results in a low frequency vibration being transferred up a golf club's shaft into the user's hands, wrists and arms.
As a result, it would be desirable to have a golf glove which could be used to dampen the vibrations caused by the golf club thereby protecting, to at least some extent, the hands, wrists and arms of the golfer. It would be further desirable if such a golf glove were padded in a manner that allowed the golf glove to remain tight fitting on the wearer's hands without providing a thick, cumbersome padding between the golfer's hands and the club. In one instance, it would be desirable to provide a golf glove which provides grip enhancing characteristics of an ordinary golf glove and yet provides some protection to the wearer from the vibrating golf club.